Roche's PR crisis

A wasted opportunity

Many netizens deplored the loss of a good opportunity for event marketing and a good PR opportunity for Roche when they gave their solutions. It is right and proper for enterprises to use emergencies for marketing, but if enterprises use people's panic to create rumors and make profits, it will be suspected of falling into the ground. Once the rumors are exposed, the brand image will be greatly damaged.

In fact, there is a better way of marketing. Netizens "Yin Sheng" and netizens "own company" asked why Roche didn't consider investing a fee to support infected citizens, or still deliver Banlangen at normal prices or even free of charge (its original low cost)? Or set up a pandemic aid fund? Or provide citizens with free infection checks? Or distribute specially sterilized masks to citizens? Or send several mobile epidemic testing stations? Or set up a team of experts to tackle the epidemic? Or sponsor a TV or newspaper column to spread knowledge about infectious disease prevention and treatment? Because companies do good deeds in public crisis events, rather than profit first, it can greatly improve the reputation of the company and is more in line with the long-term interests of the company.

Two attitudes towards public relations

The significance of public relations to an enterprise lies in communicating the mission and values of the enterprise to the public through the media, increasing the public's credibility of the enterprise's products or services, and thus shaping a good enterprise as a whole Image, and the improvement of the latter will greatly contribute to the achievement of the company's goals, and accordingly, the company's profits will also increase. At the current corporate management level, the public's understanding has been greatly broadened, and it has gradually become a consensus to focus on stakeholders (Stakeholders) rather than just to please shareholders (Shareholders). What are stakeholders? In short, organizations and individuals involved in the survival of a business, such as governments, NGOs, customers, suppliers, competitors, etc., and of course shareholders.

Good PR must be Proactive, not Reactive. From a global perspective, pharmaceutical companies have always spent a lot of money on public relations. But puzzlingly, we haven't seen much about Roche's PR in China. On the contrary, we have seen many times in the media, such as competitors suing Roche for infringing on the other party's goodwill in promoting its diet pills, or Roche and a former partner are now in court for the ownership of the trademark. Compared with the large-scale themed activities of Xi'an Janssen's "re-walking the Long March" and delivering medicines to impoverished areas all the way, Roche at least lacks a clear and vivid image in China.

After an emergency occurs, what attitude and method should a conscientious and responsible company adopt to deal with the crisis? Johnson & Johnson's flagship brand "Tylenol" was once put into capsules with hydrogenated compounds, causing many deaths. In the face of the huge crisis, the company resolutely made a decision to recall all the products out of the market and lost hundreds of millions. However, the company's crisis public relations have achieved considerable results. After a short-term decline in sales, "Tylenol" regained the No. 1 position in the market in less than two years. Therefore, emergencies are unavoidable, and the key is how to deal with them.

First of all, the problem must not be avoided. The netizen's "own company" believes that regardless of whether Roche has violated the relevant drug management laws, it is undeniable that the "Tamiflu" incident has brought adverse effects, and the argument can only have side effects. The product characteristics of a pharmaceutical company determine that it must be a more responsible company than any industry company, and Roche must be brave enough to take this responsibility. Similarly, many netizens believe that even if Roche has nothing to do with this matter, it should not file a lawsuit at this stage, and Roche may not necessarily lose in court, but, "Even if Roche's lawsuit can be won, it is more likely that it will lose. It's people's hearts."

As for how to deal with it, netizens "Urban Prawns" and "Miaoshan" believe that Roche should set up a crisis public relations team, actively cooperate with the investigation by the administrative department, and strive to clarify the truth as soon as possible. At the same time, the company's senior management should come forward and sincerely apologize to the public, and deal with the responsible person, "save the soldier and protect the commander", and give the public an explanation.

Positive interaction with the media Netizen "My Company" believes that this incident was detonated by the media. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts in the media, actively inform the media of the company's investigation and handling of the matter, and actively invite the media to the company. Interviews and constant emphasis on Roche's sincerity in paying attention to public health to the media prompted the media to gradually turn to positive reporting. The opposite is the opinion of the netizen "Wolfking", "There are some things in China that you can easily end up as a beaten underdog if you have a high profile. If you don't have a good sense of balance and are too sincere, you will only get everyone and kill them. Of". How to look at this issue, we might as well refer to a crisis public relations of Nestlé.

In 1973, a group of charities and religious groups launched a campaign against Nestlé milk powder on the grounds that Nestlé's sale of milk powder violated the "breastfeeding" principle. killer". At the beginning, Nestlé instinctively resisted with a defensive attitude, and took the relevant media to court, and the court ruled that the media lost the case. But in the minds of the public, it was Nestlé that lost. Subsequently, the company's milk powder sales fell all the way. The serious consequences made Nestlé begin to introspect. The company went to great lengths to investigate and found that more than half of mothers who had used breastmilk substitutes in their babies' first four months did so without being advertised by the formula company. However, Nestlé did not use this as an excuse to excuse itself. Instead, while actively explaining to the public, it strengthened the introduction of "breastfeeding is good" and emphasized balanced publicity in product promotion. After 10 years of hard work, the activities against Nestle milk powder disappeared. The chairman of the company, Mauch, said frankly that when the media reports something, the opinions of the media themselves are often far more important than the facts, and the opinions of the media always tend to gradually become facts.

The reshaping of the positive image has already happened. Roche's top priority should be to study how to change from passive to active. The plan proposed by netizen "Mpaluo" is worth paying attention to: "The company can try to openly cooperate with the pharmaceutical department and the government to provide funds and help Relevant departments conduct pathological research on 'SARS'. Netizen "Lao Dai" also believes that it is necessary to "actively carry out public relations activities, strengthen a positive image, and strengthen public relations activities for social welfare, so as to convince the public that Roche is proving its The purpose of serving the public health has not changed. ”

This article is organized by Hercules Yang. Want to know more about crisis public relations? Please log on to the CEConline website.